Cinematic volume rendering, or volumetric Monte-Carlo path tracing, is the next-generation volume rendering technology based on path tracing. Rather than integrating observations of a ray (i.e., ray casting), cinematic volume rendering is based on path tracing that integrates all illuminance arriving to a single point on the surface of an object. The integrated illuminance is then reduced by a surface reflectance function in order to determine how much of the illuminance will travel to the viewpoint camera. Cinematic volume rendering also integrates over all other data points inside the volume (i.e., the direction of light may change in areas without an implicit surface due to scattering). The integration procedure is repeated for every pixel in the output image. By utilizing cinematic volume rendering, noise is largely suppressed and the structures of the volume renderings are greatly enhanced. Cinematic volume rendering and volumetric Monte-Carlo path tracing are described in PCT/EP2014/070231. FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate example volume renderings from the same data generated by conventional volume rendering techniques (i.e., ray casting) and by cinematic volume rendering techniques (i.e., path tracing), respectively.
Diagnostic reading of rendered three-dimensional images is time-consuming and error-prone. For example, current clinical practices may require manual and sequential reading of multi-planar reformatting or multi-planar reconstruction (MPR) planes, slice-by-slice and one section at a time. Further, challenges arise from reading rendered three-dimensional images of bones and other anatomic structures because of complex and twisted geometries of the structures and because of variable intensities of diagnostic values across different patients and from different pathologies (e.g., bone intensity, such as bone marrow).